tonight at 9:00 on cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. let's take you up to washington. jake tapper "the lead," starts right now. nothing gets congress and the white house, all of washington, really, to come together like a war. i'm jake tapper. this is "the lead." the world lead. the fight isis on the ground while australian police say they have halted an isis-inspired plot. the sports lead. jonathan dwyer facing domestic violence charges. the man to replace dwyer has a history of abuse, too. he was in line before cnn

started asking questions about him. and the future of scotland will be sealed by the end of this hour. polls closing soon. welcome to "the lead," i'm jake tapper. the house approved a similar plan with wide bipartisan support and hagel was asked what this aid package will buy and his reluctance to use the word "war." >> we initially provide would consist of small arms. like communications as well as tactical and more advanced

training. >> what i care about is not what we call it but what we do. if you're calling it a war against this enemy of islam, please do so. >> today's hearings and vote on supporting the moderate syrian rebels led to the fascinating sight of some democrats questioning their own president and his strategy and rarer sight of some begrudgingly talking about it. >> i'm glad he came around to listening to general dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs, that basically told him we cannot defeat isis unless we go into syria. what turned me around was the fact that we are going to train the moderate sunni muslim to combat the extreme sunni muslim. and it's their fight.

>> i find it pretty disturbing that we're having this hearing after we had a vote. i've been through this, guys. i saw the coalition in iraq. we used to chuckle at each other, to come at these countries with one person. i don't know, training dogs, maybe a bomb expert. but coalition of who, what? how much? which are the combat troops? how are they going to get there? i would like to know those things. >> let's bring in loretta sanchez. she voted against the measure to arm and train moderate syrian rebels in the house yesterday. congresswoman, thanks for joining us. secretary of defense chuck hagel, once again today, warned that isis presents an immediate threat to u.s. citizens in iraq and american interests in the middle east. do you agree? >> certainly. isis does present a problem. they are a problem. we need to do something about it. i just don't believe that the

plan that they've put together to arm these moderates, as they call them, syrians will work. >> why not? and what do you think should be done? >> well, for example, some of the moderates have gone over and supported isis. i was told they won't be fighting each other. some of these moderate syrians supposedly will turn weapons on assad. that's where their real focus is. who are these moderates? who will have a command and control structure? who will be the commander in chief? these are all questions that i would like answers to and we certainly didn't get them yesterday before we voted and i didn't get them out of secretary hagel yet. >> congresswoman, if it is a threat, isis, and you don't trust the so-called moderate syrian rebels, then what should be done to stop isis, which you

acknowledge has to be stopped? >> it does need to be stopped. but even a larger question, if we can stop it and we really need the neighbors in that neighborhood to actually stop them with us. it cannot just be ourselves. but when we stop them, there will be a void, just as when we thought we had eliminated, to a larger extent, al qaeda. so what comes into a void? something else will come unless people have rebuilt their lives, rebuilt their homes, gotten education, g education gotten jobs. i do not believe these countries like saudi arabia, qatar and others are willing to do this to the point where they have agreed to put aside their differences and work together to get their region into a better spot. >> okay. but that doesn't really answer the question, with all due respect, of what needs to be done. >> what needs to be done is we need to get buy-in from all of

these countries, first and foremost. otherwise, we're going to have the same problem we're having in eye bei iraq, same problem as afghanistan. i don't believe we should be there, if that's the case. if these countries cannot sit down and get their act together with respect to this, we have no business being there. >> you seem frustrated by the process. you noted that the vote was yesterday while the hearing was today. do you think there's a rush to war here? is the obama administration giving this enough consideration? >> look. some people want to get back to campaign. we have seven weeks now. we're leaving early. we're leaving tonight. we could have stayed over the weekend, we could stay next week, as we're supposed to be here still on the 1st of october so, yes, i do believe that this is a rush. >> a rush to war? >> by any other, you know, any other name, i believe that we are getting ourselves into another war.

>> congresswoman loretta sanchez, thank you so much. >> thank you. now i want to turn to senator bob corker, ranking member on the senate foreign relations committee. senator, thank you for joining us. you just heard your colleague from across the capitol there, saying there's a rush to war in congress right now. do you think that's fair? >> not really, jake. i don't think there's a plan. i think there's been a rush for the president to appear to be addressing this isil threat but it's evident to me that they don't have the pieces put together. the hearing yesterday was very clear that that's the case. and on this arming the moderate opposition, i've been a long-time supporter of making that happen. we've tried to push the president towards that back at a time when the advocacy of this would have been much greater. i think that they have done, on this one little element which is, you know, clearly not the way we're going to have a ground

effort in syria that really matters, they are trying to take this little thing and make it look like it's a really major component of what it's going to take to deal with isil. i think it's all convoluted and it's mostly being done for optics and i do hope at some point they had get serious about telling us how they are going to deal with isil so the planning deals with the rhetoric with what is happening over there. >> senator, if you were commander in chief right now, would you send in u.s. combat forces? >> well, here's what i want do. i wouldn't say that we're never going to do that. i just think we know that the joint chiefs have recommended

special ops. we know that. in some ways, we kind of have boots on the ground. i know they are not necessarily in combat positions in iraq. but i think if you're serious, if you say the kind of things that he said on television a week and a half ago and then as cabinet members continue to repeat, i don't think you say all these things that are very strong rhetoric but then have all of these caveats about what is not going to happen. it just makes it all appear not very serious. i don't want to see boots on the ground. at the same time, when you're sitting down and laying out how you're going to defeat an enemy like this, you don't start caveating everything. so i just think this whole thing, to me, i hate to say it, has not been very serious. >> a top leader of the free syrian army who will be armed and trained by this package wrote a letter yesterday indicating that they will use

u.s. aid not just to fight isis but assad's regime as well. do you think your colleagues know that, that they are voting to give money to people who are not only going to fight isis but to get rid of assad? >> jake, look, i've been to these refugee camps. i've met the general right across the syrian border in syria who was the first general there that we were, quote, supposedly supporting. we never did support him the way we said. we've left the syrian people out to hang. we've allowed them to be butchered and slaughtered. we've encouraged them and then, again, never followed through. the rallying point to them is they want the freedoms that americans have and they want to overturn assad because we had no syria policy because the administration was just -- >> right. >> -- had no policy. >> i get that, senator. >> my point is, of course they are going to fight assad. my point is, that's the

rallying, that's the reason they are doing what they are doing. i think anybody paying any attention to this at all would understand, that's what is driving them, why they are on the battlefield and they are having to deal with this other development but it's assad that they care about. >> senator bob corker, thank you so much for your time. appreciate it. coming up, a plot to behead random civilians foiled in a country that has close ties to the u.s. could the u.s. be next? plus, she radioed for help and she was never heard from again. the desperate search mission under way right now for a police officer swept away in a flash flood here in the u.s. and more rain is on the way. [ male announcer ] if you suffer from a dry mouth then you'll know how uncomfortable it can be. [ crickets chirping ] but did you know that the lack of saliva can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath? [ exhales deeply ] [ male announcer ] well there is biotene. specially formulated with moisturizers and lubricants,

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. welcome back to "the lead," i'm jake tapper. the threat from the islamist terrorists of isis, a plot said to be inspired by isis to behead

more innocent people. not on their knees in the desert but in the streets of one of our closest allies. authorities raided a number of homes in australia rounding up suspected isis supporters and accusing them of planning to mutilate randomly selected victims. australian's prime minister said that they wanted to fulfill a nightmarish vision leader who is calling these demonstration killings. here is cnn's ivan watson. >> reporter: as the obama administration works to gather up an international coalition to combat isis, a key american ally, australia, announced that it foiled an alleged home-grown terrorist plot. australian authorities say it was linked to the isis militant group. predawn raids across australia's largest city, authorities are calling it the biggest ever anti-terror operation in this country. armed with dozens of search

warrants, at least 15 suspects were detained. the australian media reporting disturbing details. the suspects allegedly planned to film the public beheading of a random individual and then drape the body in the black flag of isis. >> this is of serious concern right at the heart of the communities we have people planning to conduct random attacks and today we've worked together to make sure that that didn't happen. we have, in fact, disrupted that particular attack. >> reporter: among the suspects detained, a man named ochl omarjan azari. he did not enter a plea. his neighbors shocked that a suspected terrorist lived next door. >> i never thought i'd see anything like this. >> my heart is pounding. >> reporter: prime minister tony abbott believes at least 60 australians are fighting alongside isis and other militant groups in the middle

east. he's repeatedly voiced fears these australian jihadis could pose a threat if they ever come home. australian intelligence revealed isis was urging homegrown sympathizers to carry out attacks in australia. >> they were coming from an australian who is apparently quite senior in isil to network some support back in australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country. >> reporter: last week, australia raised its threat level to high for the first time in the country's history. warning a terrorist attack is likely. on thursday, the australian prime minister addressed australian troops that are about to deploy for what he described as combat operations in the middle east. he argued that by fighting isis in iraq, they would be protecting iraqi people and by

extension, protecting the people of australia. ivan watson, cnn, hong kong. >> cnn's ivan watson, thank you so much. when we come back, it was supposed to be a relaxing beach vacation. a young couple was staying in a hotel and now four days later they are still missing. a yet another nfl player accused of domestic abuse. his father begged roger goodell for help and got nowhere will more victims now come forward?

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i'm jake tapper. the national lead as heavy rain and massive flooding moves across the southwest at this hour, a california family is begging for answers about their loved ones. an american couple is still missing after hurricane odile hit the pacific coast. >> please let us know. we are desperate to know whether they are safe or not. >> lisa vasquez and her fiancee were vacationing. lisa's last contact was a text message to her parents moments before landfall on sunday.

it read, mom, i can hear the wind now. i hear all kinds of things hitting the building. since then, her parents have called, e-mailed, and texted with no response. the situation in cabo remains dire with phone lines down and limited access to resources. the remnants of odile are bringing more rain to already water-logged texas and more flooding could be in the forecast. the wet weather is closing roads and endangering lives. a deputy's car was swept away in a food. her empty patrol car was pulled from the water this afternoon. joining us on the phone to discuss this is roger wade, a public information officer with the travis county sheriff's office. thanks for joining us. can you walk us through what exactly happened last night? >> it was a very harrowing experience. the deputy called in, said that she was being swept down the creek in her patrol car just

before 2:00 this morning when rescue units arrived, they found a submerged car. they had to wait for the water to go down in order to get to it. and then they found that she was not in the car. we have been frantically searching since then to try to find her downstream. >> she was conducting routine checks to are a situation like this? >> yes. every time we get heavy downpours of rain, we know that some of the local water crossings will flood. we have our deputies go out and check those. and the rural parts of the county, especially because a lot of them don't have arms that come down or barricades to block them. we go down and check those to make sure nobody is in the water and if there needs to be barricades, that we get barricades out to them. >> for people not familiar with lubbock, texas, or with the

area, is this common places or is this a scene you've never seen before? >> this is not as unusual as you would think. and it didn't get as much rain in this instance as we did during the halloween floods last year where several people perished. the creeks rose so fast in that one that people actually swept away before they could even see where they were on a lower crossing or not. there wasn't as much rain this time and it was just nothing but 5 inches of rain in particular areas. >> well, that sounds horrible. roger wade in austin, texas, thank you so much. best of luck in the search. coming up next, he has a long history of abuse, including several arrests, but that did

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up to 38% more than cold medicines alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and sleep right. breathe right. . > welcome back to "the lead." another nfl player has been charged with allegations of domestic violence and the player who was going to replace him was just let go. running back jonathan dwyer, was arrested yesterday and charged with three counts, including aggravated assault stemming from two incidents back in july. dwyer's wife bit him in the lip after he tried to remove her clothes against her will and then he head-butted her in the

face and then threw a shoe at their 17-month-old son hitting the toddler in the stomach. dwyer has denied the charges. he's currently out on bond. while the cardinals wasted no time benching the player, we have learned that dwyer's potential replacement also faced domestic violence charges in the past. sara ganim is joining us with more. what can you tell us? >> jake, this is another example of a guy who has been able to play with a history of problems. chris rainy was signed september 9th and could have been dwyer's replacement on the field but soon after we started asking questions about him, the team dropped him about an hour ago. rainey has a history of domestic abuse charges and a history of getting kicked off the teams that he's played for. his first arrest was at the

university of florida in 2010, charged with stalking his girlfriend sending her a text message "time to die, bitch." he pled guilty and was arrested twice more, once fortress pass at a racetrack and then another one for slapping his girlfriend. he was charged with misdemeanor battery and this time pleaded no contest. the steelers dropped him so the colts picked him up. and then in july, the colts dismissed him for an unexplained violation of team rules. jake, you know, we talk about second chances, third chances, this guy got his fourth chance when he was signed by the cardinals september 9th. at the time, head coach bruce told a local paper that he had thoroughly vetted rainey by talking to people who had played with him before. well, one of those people who vouched for him, none other than jonathan dwyer.

the two had played together for the steelers. >> and now the cardinals just dropped him, sara? >> right. and it's important to note, they signed rainey on september 9th, and that was before the ray rice scandal and all of the conversations about domestic violence and domestic abuse in the nfl. the cardinals knew rainey's history and still signed him. they only dropped him when dwyer was arrested and people like us started asking questions. >> sara ganim, thanks. that brings us to the money lead. sponsors are speaking out about the league and even criticizing the handling of the high-profile cases. pepsi c pepsi-co repleased a statement. "i am deeply disturbed that the

repugnant behavior of a few players and the nfl's acknowledged mishandling of these issues is casting a cloud over the integrity of the league." the sponsors have released statements dealing with domestic violence charges going forward. joining me is nancy armor. good to see you. this is a $10 billion a year industry. let me get your first reaction to the cardinals releasing chris rainey only after cnn started making calls. does that seem disingenuous to you? >> well, i think it's the state of where we are right now. no team wants to be identified or have somebody on their roster who has a history like that. they can't afford it these days. not with what radisson did with suspending the sponsorship.

no other team wants to be put in that position. >> what's so odd about this is, it doesn't seem like there's any sort of coherent policy. >> oh, there's not. there's not. they are all trying to figure it out. if you listened to the press conferences yesterday, it was clear that they were deactivating their players but they weren't quite sure why. they kept talking about the right thing and the right thing and the right thing but the more you listened to them, they didn't really know why it was the right thing. >> yeah. and also there doesn't seem to be any sort of policy, do you suspend somebody if they have been accused, if they have been c convicted. rainey was only let go after cnn started calling about dwyer's information was out there. now, jonathan dwyer's wife came forward after release of the video showing ray rice hitting his fiancee. do you think that the timing of

that shows that the women in these situations are now going to possibly be coming forward more either because they have the opportunity to or they have -- >> if you look at the numbers for the hotline, just in a couple of days after the ray rice videotape became public, their call volume spiked and mostly it was women calling saying, i thought i was the only one, i didn't realize there were other women in this position and they felt that it gave them strength to come forward. so not to pile on the nfl, but i hope that this does encourage other women who have been victims of abuse to come forward to take a stand and say, no, this is not acceptable and i am not going to hide. i have nothing to be ashamed of. >> obviously roger goodell owes

his job to the team owners. i wonder if this incomprehensible policy that they have, which means that there is no specific policy, is purposeful. the owners don't want to let go of these players because they are going to help them win games and make money. is it on purpose? >> i don't know that it's on purpose, necessarily. they've never dealt with this before. they've never had to deal with it before. no one has ever really taken them to task and now all of a sudden they are trying to figure out, what do we do in this situation, in that situation? so they are kind of bunkering down and all of them are scrambling to figure out a cohesive policy and hoping that they can get it tamped down enough that they can come up with something so they've got something cohesive going forward. >> nancy, thank you so much. appreciate your time. this just in now, three days after "the lead" reported that

oracle could have exposed sensitive information on tens of thousands of people, larry ellison is stepping down as ceo, the position he's held since 1977. he's not leaving the company altogether, of course. he'll hang on the board and chief executive officer. ellison is the fifth richest man in the world. senator john mccain defending himself over this photograph. who are these men standing next to him and why is one senator saying that mccain made a huge mistake by standing next to them. and will a kingdom be become the untied kingdom? so what we're looking for is a way to "plus" our accounting firm's mobile plan. and "minus" our expenses. perfect timing. we're offering our best-ever pricing on mobile plans for business. run the numbers on that. well, unlimited talk and text, and ten gigs of data for the five of you would be...

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welcome back to "the lead." let's do some politics now as the senate gets ready to vote. rand paul gave an impassioned speech on the senate floor. >> we don't even know who is in charge of the free syrian army. they voted out one guy and another guy and they didn't know they were voting. there are estimates that half of the free syrian army has defected. many of them to al nusra and al qaeda and to isis. >> senator paul has been criticizing not just the free syrian army but also his fellow republicans senator john mccain about whom he says mccain met with members of isis and snapped this smiling photo with them. the only problem, it's not true. we checked it out. "the washington post" even said the claim deserves four pinnochios for being so bogus.

let's bring in dana bush. not only did he call the claims ridiculous, but identified all of those in the picture, he told me who everyone was, a general, a media representative, a guard. he noted the fact that the free syrian army is a bitter enemy of isis. so dana, why would senator paul make such a false allegation? >> he was misinformed, i guess, and that's probably the only way to answer that, jake. and he had a very veiled but seemed to me pretty clear repetition of this kind of idea towards the end of his lengthy speech talking about politicians posing for pictures with em ppe. look, this is kind of the basis of the way rand paul is

preparing for his 2015 run, and that is to distinguish himself by saying they are just wrong on being so aggressively interventionist and it's become very personal for him versus john mccain because for the last ten years, if not more, has embodied that type of view and philosophy. >> the insults have gone back and forth. hard to argue, though, maggie, for senator paul to argue about the rightness of his cause when he has such a wrong claim in his pitch. let's move on from the fact-checking element. what's the larger gain here for rau rand paul and picking fights with people like mccain who is an interventionist and talking about national security issues? >> as dana said, part of it is

differentiating it. the problem with rand paul, too, is he seem needs to seem credible on foreign policy. when he has moments like this, he sets himself back and he's had other problems with this kind of thing where he's said something to not quite be true or he's claimed that he didn't say something that he later said. this does not help ultimately for sort of the party elders for the support he needs at some point. >> dana, i want to move on, if that's okay. speaking of 2016, hillary clinton spoke at the center for american progress today, a liberal think tank, a lot of people think of it as the clinton campaign in waiting.

she talked about empowering women in jobs. what's the significance of an issue like this? >> she talked about family issues and we get middle-class issues and upward mobility. this is something that hillary clinton has not talked about very much. she gave one economic focus speech but largely it's been promoting her book. she's gotten criticism and jobs, the economy. this is very much the beginning of messaging that you did not see her do and she's now surrounding herself with these issues. >> speaking of hillary clinton, she got a lot of criticism, dana, at that select committee of benghazi which had its first

hearing. a lot of officials came forward and talked about how the clinton state department didn't provide enough security and it seems there's no political end game. theoretically, if there's no end game, there's no end date for this committee. and that was the democratic worry and there's a very big divide in the party, the rank and file in the house in particular of whether or not they should even participate or boycott it, or whether they should bless it. but it's going to be a problem for her as they get closer and they are not the only ones. rand paul specifically talked about hillary clinton again and not just what happened in the days and the weeks after

benghazi but talking about mistakes he said she made in the six months running up to that date. she's going to get it from all sides no matter what. >> maggie, before you run, there was a story in politico, your newspaper, a pretty scathing article about the chair, congressman debbie wasserman schultz, democrat of florida, had a lot of off-the-record criticisms about her, snide remarks about her and serious criticisms. how much of a liability is she to her own party or is this a story that you think will blow over? >> i think we all focus on this more than people in the world do. i don't think a lot of people know who the dnc chair woman is and -- >> organizing for america? >> yes. to play a significant role. at the end of the day, it's not that she's a huge liability, but

she has few friends in the white house and congress and then you end up in this position where there are criticisms, there are not many people defending you. the silence from the obama land has been pretty deafening. the white house spoke nicely about her but in very muted terms and what is missing is people saying, she has the president's full confidence. >> maggie, dana, thank you. wolf blizer tzer. >> is joining me. >> he addressed the joint meeting with the house and the senate. we're talking about ukrainian president petro poroshenko and then went to the oval office for a meeting with the president. right now he's here and he's going to walk into "the situation room". we'll find out, is he going to get lethal military equipment from the united states? he's asked for two requests.

did he get a yes or a no from the president. >> you don't know? >> i don't know. these are good questions. >> apparently they are giving lethal aid away in syria. >> if they are giving lethal aid to the moderate rebels in syria, why not to ukraine? >> wolf blitzer, thank you so much. mere moments from now, the final votes will be cast in scotland either for or against leaving the united kingdom. it's a toss-up. that's when we come back. i hait's tough, but severi've managed.ease. but managing my symptoms was all i was doing. so when i finally told my doctor, he said humira is for adults like me

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welcome back to "the lead," our world lead. scottish voters know there is no going back but it's impossible right now to say, will they stay or will they go? voters are choosing whether to remain in the united kingdom with some greater powers or go it alone as an independent nation. the most recent polls showed the vote too close to call. but the yes side has gained roughly 28 points in the last month. separatist leader blair jenkins said that they just don't understand london. >> they have been increasingly out of touch and out of time when it comes to people in scotland. it's been a little too late. >> cnn's max foster is joining us from scotland just minutes

before the polls are to close. max, how is turnout now? >> reporter: well, it looks as though it's been a very, very strong turnout. close to 90%, based on people's experience during a general election. it certainly looks very good. the top of the hour, the postal votes will start to be counted. the box is being brought in behind me and we expect the first results to be done locally. so 32 local areas. the first ones are expected in about six hours time and the final result is nine hours' time. it doesn't count recounts or problems along the way. always, jake, weather is a great issue and there's major fog on the islands. the planes may not be able to bring the ballot boxes in. >> so in about nine hours we'll know if scotland broke away from the united kingdom.

if scotland does go, will cameron's government fail, fall? >> it won't particularly fall but david cameron has been asked if he will resign if there's a "yes" vote in this. he becomes the last prime minister of great britain and to many that seems untenable. he's been blamed. the clip you played really intimating the fact that he left things too late. it was only in the last month that he started realizing it was a possibility and in this panic he kept delivering very impassioned speeches. he's not really popular here anyway. >> in fact, it's the conservative government that many in scotland where it's more liberal and more progressive saying that england is out of step with scotland. max foster, thank you. follow me on twitte

twitter @jaketapper. go to cnn/the lead.com. i turn you over to wolf blitzer. he's right next door in a place we like to call "the situation room." the united states finalizes plans to begin targeting isis terrorists inside syria as the group delivers a new hostage video unlike anything we've seen before. desperate plea. u kre ukraine's president is going to join us live. we'll discuss this hour. arson arrest. police name a suspect in the massive wildfire that's burned more than 70,000 acres and has forced thousands of people to flee their homes. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room."